Paul Ryan floats change to Medicare plan

Paul Ryan’s budget will show how Republicans can balance a budget that’s trillions of dollars out of whack. But the most significant unresolved issue comes down to a minuscule number: one year.

Ryan — the House Budget Committee chairman — has privately been floating the idea of allowing his changes to Medicare to kick in for Americans younger than 56. In previous budgets, those 55 and older were exempted from his plan to turn Medicare into a premium-support — or voucher — program.

Republicans have been arguing for two years that their plans wouldn’t affect Medicare coverage for anyone older than 54, and Democrats will surely pounce on any change as Republicans breaking faith with their own pledge to seniors. The Ryan budget served as a favorite battering ram for Democrats against Republican candidates on the campaign trail.

Ryan, according to Republicans familiar with his pitch, wants to take a stand on a program they say doesn’t have a future for the next generation of retirees if major reforms aren’t made soon. If the GOP gradually makes the argument to change the program incrementally, they hope the public will begin to accept it.

Republican leaders just want to pass a budget, and they’ll most likely back whichever plan eases that path.

The Wisconsin Republican plans to roll out the outlines of his budget Wednesday in a pen-and-pad session with reporters, and the age issue is one of only a handful of unresolved questions remaining. Also in the Ryan budget: a filibuster-proof pathway toward tax and entitlement reform — a process known as budget reconciliation. It’s the way Republicans think they’ll be able to jump-start a grand deficit compromise with Senate Democrats and Obama.

Balancing the budget in the next decade will be markedly easier, given the sequester’s spending cuts and the fresh injection of new governmental revenue at the beginning of 2013.

The truth, insiders say, is the new Ryan budget isn’t much different than last year’s — or the one from the year before.

“It’s not going to be that much different, except for the fact that it will balance in 10 years,” Majority Whip Kevin McCarthy (R-Calif.) told POLITICO in an interview.

GOP leaders acknowledge the budget has potential downsides: It requires deep cuts to achieve balance in the next decade. But they think they will pass the spending blueprint easily.

It’s a telling test for the GOP, one that pits ideology against pragmatism and also underscores how far the center of gravity in the House Republican Conference has shifted to the right in just a few years. When Ryan first started talking about changing Medicare, many of his colleagues thought he was leading them on a kamikaze mission. Now, they’re arguing over whether it would be better to exempt nine years or 10 years’ worth of people from the changes, even though the plan has no chance of becoming law.